The Joint Center for Operations Analysis (JCOA) is a branch of the U.S. Joint Forces Command that is responsible for operations research and analysis of "lessons learned". They have undertaken research projects recently to evaluate what we did right and what we did wrong in major events from Hurricane Katrina to the Indian Ocean tsunami to the U.S. Presidential elections.
The report of the two-year JCOA study of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) is written from the perspective of the leadership of Saddam's regime through dozens of interviews with regime officials and the review of thousands of captured regime documents. The Iraqi Perspectives Project is now available in full online, (in pdf document format). It concerns itself almost exclusively with the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of March, 2003, and the subsequent three weeks or so until the fall of Baghdad. The early sections of the book are devoted to examining Saddam's rise to power and the nature of the Saddam regime, which proved valuable in helping to explain the conduct of the regime before and during the U.S. invasion.
The report is over 200 pages long (230 in the pdf file) but much of it is in the form of illustrations, maps, footnotes, etc. The actual text is about 150 pages. I ripped through it in a couple of hours last night, and I highly recommend reading it all. I found it to be highly readable and interesting, even when it waded deep into the details of the military maneuvering of the Iraqis during the defense of Baghdad.
The excerpted version of the IPP published recently in Foreign Affairs online was titled "Saddam's Delusions", and after reading the full report, it's apparent that the overriding characteristic of the Saddam regime, in terms of its self-understanding, was delusion.
Saddam rose to power in large part by killing off his political adversaries, and he retained power by systematically purging the intelligent, the competent and the independent in his ranks. He murdered those he suspected might wish to rise to power, and he murdered those who dared to tell him uncomfortable truths. He created a culture of sycophants and liars around him, and his paranoia about being victimized by a coup compelled him to prohibit communications between the top ranks of his military command.
We have heard all of these themes about Saddam before, but the IPP reports directly from the mouths of Saddam's subordinates, so the message is delivered with authority and credibility. Nobody, least of all Saddam, knew what the hell was going on. What little communication existed between key elements of the regime and the military consisted of Saddam's people lying to each other, and to their commander. Small wonder Baghdad fell in three weeks.
Among Saddams delusions was his belief that his bribery and manipulation of the French and the Russians would ultimately prevent a U.S. invasion. This is another emphasis of the report, made largely through the testimony of Tariq Aziz.
Throughout the years of relative external peace for Iraq after Operation Desert Storm, in 1991, Saddam Hussein continued to receive and give credence to optimistic assessments of his regime's prospects dished up by his top military officers. Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz described the dictator as having been "very confident" that the United States would not dare to attack Iraq, and that if it did, it would be defeated.... What was the acute source of Saddam's confidence on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom?Judging from his private statements, the single most important element in Saddam's strategic calculus was his faith that France and Russia would prevent an invasion by the United States. Tariq Aziz revealed that this confidence was firmly rooted in the nexus between the economic interests of France and Russia and his own strategic goals:
"France and Russia each secured millions of dollars worth of trade and service contracts in Iraq, with the implied understanding that their political posture with regard to sanctions on Iraq would be pro-Iraqi. In addition, the French wanted sanctions lifted to safeguard their trade and service contracts in Iraq. Moreover, they wanted to prove their importance in the world as members of the Security Council -- that they could use their veto to show they still had power."Undoubtedly, such confidence was likely perceived to be the fruit of Saddam's decade-long efforts to gain support in the United Nations Security Council through bribery and political influence buying. He had often received assurances and indications during this period that his strategy was paying off. For example, open sources have reported that the Iraqi Ambassador to Moscow sent a note to Baghdad on 4 October 2002, stating the following:
Our friends [in Russian Intelligence] have told us that President Putin has given very clear instructions to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs vis-a-vis Iraq. Our friends instruct us that Russia is very clear in its opposition to any attack on Iraq. It will not allow the new resolution to include any intention that would allow the use of force against Iraq
Later in the IPP text, (pp. 90-91) Tariq Aziz goes even farther to explain that the Iraqis knew and admitted (even if the Western anti-war protestors wouldn't) that French and Russian opposition to the invasion was entirely self-interested, and not rooted in some high-minded principle...
The Iraqi regime's constant overplaying of its hand meant it could never muster enough international support to break completely free of the sanctions regimen. Actions such as supporting suicide bombers in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and harrassing UN weapons inspectors were enough to keep the Americans and some of its allies highly suspicious of Saddam's motives and intent. Iraq also had to face the fact that its erstwhile friends would defend it only so far. Ultimately, they calculated only their self-interest. Tariq Aziz explained to an interviewer after the war:
Russia and France did not help Iraq, they helped themselves...We had attempted to win favor with the French and the Russians through the oil and other contracts, but our relationship wiith the French began to suffer after 1998, when the Iraqi government began charging a ten percent cash surcharge on each oil-for-food contract. The French refused to do it; they ended up doing it through intermediaries. Their contracts would be made through Jordanian firms, but filled by the French, and this was not as profitable as before. [Prime Minister Lionel] Jospin told me in 1998 the profit [had] reached 400 million by then. After the surcharge went into effect, the French started making negative statements about Iraq. Jospin and [President Jacques] Chirac made anti-Iraq statements, and we began to reconsider our relationship. The French are dubious, they are Westerners...Their opposition to lifting sanctions was in their national interest, just as their support for it was in their national interest prior to the war- they know that the post-sanctions contracts will go to U.S. companies, and they will lose millions. Their opposition proves that their interest in lifting sanctions was not genuine. The French were defending their position, not defending Iraq...
Well said, Tariq.
Amoing Saddam's other delusions as noted in the IPP.
- He believed in the superiority of the Iraqi soldiers over their U.S. counterparts. He never took the American military seriously, using experiences in Somalia, and the Clinton preference for low-risk bombing campaigns over ground forces operations as his guidelines.
- He believed that the U.S. invasion would never get to Baghdad, assuming they would be bogged down and routed in the south, and would withdraw in defeat.
- He came to believe in his own innate wisdom in military strategy, and often made strategic decisions without even consulting his military professionals.
More later on the disclosures of Russian backstabbing of the U.S. in the run up to Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Posted by dan at March 26, 2006 2:07 PM